Pedrosa pulls rank as 250cc test ends at Catalunya World Champion Daniel Pedrosa stamped his authority over his 250cc class rivals with a late surge of speed on the final day of tests at Catalunya on Thursday. With the MotoGP teams set to take over preseason development duties at the Barcelona venue on Friday morning, Pedrosa rode his quarter-litre Honda until track closure at 6pm today and posted the fastest lap with his very last effort, dipping under record pace with a time of 1:46.248 as the chequered flag was waved. Despite having dominated the time sheets for much of the day, Pedrosa seemed to have conceded bragging rights to Aprilia’s Sebastián Porto, the runner-up from last season. The two riders were the last men out on track as they battled for supremacy in an entertaining end to the day, but the Argentinean was unable to improve on his previous best and was forced to settle for second place after the Spaniard’s late effort. “It was a difficult day today because we’ve had problems with the carburetion of the bike, as we did yesterday,” explained Pedrosa, who ran up 99 laps today a total bettered only by his Honda team-mate Hiroshi Aoyama, who completed a marathon 104 circulations of the 4727m track. “We also had a few problems with the front tyre and it seems as though they didn’t bring enough here, but I guess that was the same problem for all the riders. These problems disrupted our programme a little but in the afternoon it was a lot better. We parked the number one bike and worked solely on the spare, which I felt more comfortable with, and we got the time down in the end. Hopefully we can solve the problems at Jerez next week.” Randy de Puniet completed the third highest number of laps and ended the test with the third fastest time ahead of Aprilia colleague Alex de Angelis and Honda’s Jorge Lorenzo, who completed the top five. The 250cc teams now head south from Catalunya through Spain to the Jerez circuit in the region of Andalucía, where they will continue testing from 23-24 March. Several MotoGP riders were on hand to watch the 250cc session today as they finalise preparations for their first official confrontation of the preseason, which starts on Friday morning at 10.00h and runs until Sunday. The highlight of the weekend promises to be a timed 40-minute session on the final day, when the fastest rider will be handed the BMW Award MotoGP Test and will drive away in a brand-new BMW 1-series car. Official 250cc GP Test Times: 1. Daniel PEDROSA, Honda, 1:46.248 2. Sebastian PORTO, Aprilia, 1:46.438 3. Randy DE PUNIET, Aprilia, 1:46.756 4. Alex DE ANGELIS, Aprilia, 1:46.787 5. Jorge LORENZO, Honda, 1:47.018 6. Andrea DOVIZIOSO, Honda, 1:47.021 7. Hector BARBERA, Honda, 1:47.199 8. Roberto LOCATELLI, Aprilia, 1:47.379 9. Hiroshi AOYAMA, Honda, 1:47.546 10. Simone CORSI, Aprilia, 1:47.550 11. Casey STONER, Aprilia, 1:47.642 12. Alex DEBON, Honda, 1:48.274 13. Chaz DAVIES, Aprilia, 1:48.520 14. Mirko GIANSANTI, Aprilia, 1:48.535 15. Sylvain GUINTOLI, Aprilia, 1:48.703 16. Steve JENKNER, Aprilia, 1:48.818 17. Jakub SMRZ, Honda, 1:48.898 18. Yuki TAKAHASHI, Honda, 1:48.961 19. Andrea BALLERINI, Aprilia, 1:49.428 20. Taro SEKIGUCHI, Aprilia, 1:49.498 21. Alex BALDOLINI, Aprilia, 1:49.525 22. Gregory LEBLANC, Aprilia, 1:49.694 23. Radomil ROUS, Honda, 1:49.867 24. Martin CARDENAS, Aprilia, 1:50.382 25. Dirk HEIDOLF, Honda, 1:50.890 26. Arnaud VINCENT, Fantic, 1:52.584 27. Gabriele FERRO, Fantic, 1:54.447